Abstract
Using a panel of 45 countries, 2007–2022, we study how climate risk and the Paris Agreement shape SME bank lending. We combine two-way fixed effects with event-study diagnostics, panel quantile regression, two-step system GMM, local projections with Driscoll-Kraay errors, a structural mediation design, and staggered DiD for Paris ratification. Disasters depress SME credit (approx. -1% on impact in TWFE; -3.6% in 2SGMM), with insignificant placebo leads and persistent post-shock contractions. Effects are negative across the conditional distribution, largest at the median and consistent with a broad supply tightening. The importance of structural conditions shows higher ND-GAIN Vulnerability lowers lending, while Readiness raises it; part of each effect operates through realised disasters (approx. 11% and 24% mediated). It is also found that after a short lag, a decline in SME credit increases where vulnerability is high and attenuated where readiness is strong.